A special Valentines wish for my wife, Pamela and three incredible daughters.
I will never be at a loss to find love in my life on this one day of the year.
You are my life, my loves, precious lights in the deepest of darkness, the sweetest inspiration.
Put on your headphones.
The orchestra is phenomenal.
I love you all dearly.
Happy Valentines Day.
Be mine.

It was 20 years ago tonight that my wife elbowed me at 1:30 in the morning saying,
“My water just broke. Get some sleep.”
Get some sleep?
Yeah, right.
I called Pamela’s mom and told her to come over immediately (to watch a sleeping 3 year-old Sarah)
and it wasn’t soon after that we were changed and in my silver Datsun 210 on the way to the hospital.
It was cold as hell and my brakes were grinding to the metal.
Pamela thought we would never make it to Hannemann Hospital.
We did.
At 8:11AM (2.7.90) Pamela gave birth to our second daughter, Jenna.
Tomorrow afternoon we will have a house full of family and Jenna’s college friends
and more Chinese food than you can shake a stick at.
We will also be watching some Supernatural episodes (Jenna’s favorites, methinks)
We will basically have our own ‘Supernatural Bowl’.
Could be much better than the actual Super Bowl itself.  (no Dean)
Happy birthday, Jen.
Mom and I love you and your sisters more than you will ever know.
Have a ‘supernatural’ day, okay?
Here’s a Supernatural gag reel that you may not have seen.
See you tomorrow afternoon, kiddo.

23 years ago today, a very special little girl came into our lives.
I’ve always loved this song and dedicate it to my Sarah.
Love you always, kiddo.
And yeah, Thad Jones rocks.

Dad

98% of people say ‘Oh Shit!’ before going in the ditch on a slippery road.
The other 2% are from Massachusetts and they say,
‘Hold my beer and watch this!’

*I usually say,
“Put on your seatbelt. I’m going to try something.
I’ve only seen it done in a cartoon but I think I can do it.”

Happy Thanksgiving, folks!
I will be off and on with the blog for the next few days as I prepare Thursday’s feast.
Roast turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole and on and on.
Be safe, be well, be happy and be full . . .

The following is a Public Service Announcement that was done in the UK.
It is graphic, violent and bloody.
I post this for anyone with children driving these days.
I have three daughters and they will undoubtedly watch this.
If it saves one life, it will have been well worth the post.
And if you think for one minute that this isn’t happening, you are KIDDING yourself.
Talk to your children.
God only knows how much I love mine.
Technology giveth and technology taketh away.
Please don’t let it be the latter.
Please view this video with caution.

Many a hot summer night will find me on the back deck with my laptop,
a cold Guinness and a nice warm cigar.
It’s what I choose to do during this season.
I dream about it at work, on the train back home and make the dream come true when I get there.
I’ve been known to choose the back deck and a cigar over a Red Sox game. (oh, the horrors!)
My daughters will come and go during the night passing me on their way in and out of the house.
They usually wave their hands in a back and forth fashion in front of their face to let me know
that my cigar stinks like poop.

I usually turn and say, “Someday, when I’m gone-” (and I get cut off)

“We know Dad, when you’re dead and buried we’ll be walking down a street and smell a cigar and think of you.
How nice. That thing stinks.”

“Gee, thanks, hon. Love you, too.”

I usually utter that to an empty backyard because they’ve already gone back into the house.
I smoke some very nice cigars, folks.
I have 12 year old Cubans in my humidor, for God’s sake.
These ain’t your Daddy’s Phillie Grape-flavored Blunts.
I’m thinking Pamela actually likes the aroma of at least a few of them.

Last Sunday, a woman came into the store,
stopped in the middle of the floor and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply.
She opened her eyes, smiled and looked at me.
She was crying.

She said,
“I hope you don’t mind but I’m taking a walk down Memory Lane here.
Places like this just remind me of my Dad. It’s almost like he’s here.”

“He is,” said I.

She looked around as she was leaving and almost lovingly said,
“Thank you so much.”

If I had a dime for every time someone said, “this place reminds me of my grandfather,”
I would be a very rich man.
I usually smile, nod my head and think, same old, same old.
Been there, cut the cigar, smoked the cigar and bought the T-shirt.
For some reason, this woman seemed different to me.
Maybe it was the fragments of truth that seemed to hang on her every word.
She was moved to tears by the aroma of a century old cigar shop.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised.
I can only hope that years after I’m gone, my daughters can still find a special shop that offers up the unique and precious memories that mine currently does.
They may just have to settle for the aroma of some fine Cuban cigar wafting through the air
of some distant and special summer night in the distant future.
That will be Dad, girls . . .  that special kiss on your cheek.
It’s me.

I’ve wanted to keep a record of personal recipes for my daughters to cook
when I’m someday reduced to a room temperature dish of Fettucine-al-Dead-o, or Face-Planting the Meringue maybe even pushin’ up the perpetual parsley.
Something about food that’s familiar is quite simply
comforting with a capital C.
I began thinking about a small book of some sort but that idea fizzled.
A blog made more sense as it’s something I can just keep adding to as the years go by and I come across more recipes.
Click on the picture above and check out Dad’s Diner.
Eat at Dad’s where you’ll live forever and the cheeseburgers are to die for.
As always, I’ll leave the lights on for ya . . . 

ps. special thanks to Maureen for helping me get this up and running.

Sarah and I went to visit my father yesterday to feed him lunch and sit with him for a while.
Lately, he’s been overly emotional for reasons I may never be privy to.
The minute he saw us, he broke down completely.
I feel terrible saying it but I’ve almost gotten used to it now.
I had to.
My empathy for him that once seemed to be an impossibility to avoid feeling
has now turned into an acceptance of sorts that boggles my mind.
He was in the rec room that overlooks the city waiting to be fed.
I wheeled him to his room where I know it’s quiet and had Sarah get his lunch.
He’s a finicky eater these days around everyone except my sister and me which makes total sense.
His diet is now 100% pureed making his meals look more like and artist’s palette than a meal.
I learned yesterday that spinach makes my father cry.
On his plate were potatoes, spinach and something that would resemble pasta and meatballs in the ‘baby food’ format.
20 years ago, the thought of drinking an Italian meal through a straw had never occurred to me.
My father’s daily nutritional needs are now thrown into a blender ala ‘Bass-O-Matic’.
And I wonder why he cries?
I can’t get away from the feeling that a small part of him is frightened.
Not of me or Sarah or Maureen or Pam and the kids but he seems almost Fear Factor scared.
My sister says he’s a tortured soul and I would have to agree.
There are so many things that run rampant through my mind as I feed him, spoonful by blessed spoonful . . .
(I’m looking at a rainbow hovering over Boston as I write this. Truth)

there was the day we brought my mother to assisted living and took my father back to our house for a BBQ.
That may have been one of the last times that I actually ‘had’ him.
He was making sense and I could talk to him and he could understand me.
He was profoundly sad about bidding farewell to his wife for two weeks but at least he still liked the taste of beer (something he’s since lost long ago)

Spoonful by blessed spoonful . . .

the soft, cool grass beneath my feet in the backyard as we played catch after he got home from work.
We never talked when we played catch but there was conversation that he and I understood.
Especially when he threw a ball with some mustard on it, smiling as I caught it.
That was my own personal field of dreams.

Spoonful by blessed spoonful . . .

the Christmas night I went to the facility he was staying in and found him in a self-induced sugar coma after polishing off an entire bag of Dove’s chocolates that someone had given him.
There were candy wrappers everywhere, discarded like wrapping paper on Christmas morning.
He seemed ready to do jumping jacks, for Christ’s sake

I keep praying for a rainbow in his future but he’s having one hell of a time seeing through the gauzy reality he’s currently living in.
I finish giving him lunch and to my surprise he’s eaten everything save for the Popeye spinach soup.
I’m happy because he has a belly full of food but he’s the farthest thing from a happy ending because he knows it’s time for me to go.
I kiss his forehead and say, “I love you, Dad,” to which he replies, “Yeah.”
Sarah and I walk to the door and she says, “Bye, Grampa.”
More Wally tears.
We walk down the corridor to the elevators in silence as I allow myself to cry a bit on the inside
wanting badly for the seemingly inconsequential goodbyes to finally end.
It’s then that I have an small epiphany; as I feed him lunch, he’s actually feeding me.
It’s a Communion of sorts between my father and I.
I change my mind then and there.
And all of a sudden I don’t want the goodbyes to end.

Dear Dad,

I know you’ll never read this but I wanted to take a few minutes
and tell the world how very much you mean to me and Maureen.
We miss so many things about you; your laugh, your smile, your once bright eyes,
the way you used to drive Mom nuts whenever you tried to sing,
how proud you were of your wonderful grandchildren,
even the way you used to wrap yourself up like a mummy whenever we went to the beach so you wouldn’t go all ‘lobster’ on us.
I’ll be visiting you this Sunday and will undoubtedly feed you lunch,
maybe give you a shave if you need one.
It’s really sad that there isn’t more I can do.
But at least I can do that.
I haven’t been keeping up with the Red Sox like I used to either.
That was something I did when you were better so we’d have something to talk about besides the weather.
These days the weather isn’t worth talking about anyway.
I saw an older man sitting on a bench on the Boston Common the other day that looked just like you.
I absentmindedly started walking faster towards you him before I caught myself.
He wasn’t you.
He could never be you.
Then again no one could ever be the man I call my father except for you.
On Sunday, Maureen and I pray a small part of you knows how special you have always been to us
and will continue to be.
Maureen says it best when she gently puts her hand on your cheek and says,
“You are the greatest Dad ever, you know that don’t you?”
And so I will say, “Happy Father’s Day, Dad,”
because in my heart I know you’re still in there somewhere.

Much love, Papa Wally
Much love . . .

I began thinking about the old black pot belly stove that sat in the cellar of the house I grew up in.
No idea where the thought came from but it triggered a total waterfall of memories for me.
The stove was fat in the way a corpulent Santa Claus would be.
It had an ornate shiny silver ‘belt’ of trim around the belly and a flat top where you could actually put a skillet and fry some eggs or place a kettle to boil water.
I vaguely remember my father heating some hot dogs and  Boston Baked Beans on it one winter night when the power went out, though my sister would have to validate that.
Many magical things happened in that cellar over the years.
There were the band rehearsals where I learned to play songs like ‘Ohio’, ‘For What It’s Worth’ and  ‘Rocky Racoon’.
I learned that Wild Irish Rose was total rotgut at $2.98 a bottle and that weed was something to be smoked and not ripped from the garden to be added to the compost pile.
Guild, Fender and Martin guitars were awesome and playing the introduction to ‘Black Magic Woman’ on a Fender Rhodes while high was a near religious experience.
(My Mom knew, but said very little)
It was in that special place that I slowly broke away from childhood innocence and began to see all the crazy possibility in the world.
It was in the ground level bay window that my father would set up one of those chintzy silver tinsel Christmas trees.
You know, the ones that were lit up by a squeaky and archaic tri-color rotating light that turned the tree from red to green to yellow to yack?
My father would plug it in and run outside and stand in the side yard and stare at it as he shook his head in total Yuletide affirmation.
After my sister’s wedding (reception), 100 or so people descended on the house; upstairs, downstairs, in the cellar, 9 Old Worcester Road was transformed into a surreal but quintessential Animal House complete with music, booze, food and crazy people walking through screen doors.
I’d never seen my Dad totally blasted until that night.
Christ in a sidecar, he was funny.
Even funnier the next morning. (don’t talk to me, just don’t talk to me . . . )
The cellar was also the location of a very special place created by Sarah and Jenna (my two oldest daughters) called, ‘Mr. Boston’s’.
My father had remodeled an old bureau into a bar on wheels, an idea he got from God knows where.
Take a bureau and turn it around so the drawers are facing away from you, cover the back and sides with paneling and put a nice wood trim around the top corners and you have a bar.
I can still see the tacky yellow linoleum he put on the bureau top.
The ‘drawer’ side faced the bartender where there were drawers filled with drink mixes, napkins, toothpicks, martini glasses, broken corkscrews and booze (except in the off season).
There was a maniacal clock with backwards numbers and hands that hung on the wall behind the bar. (the second hand went backwards)
On the face it boldly asked “Are you ready for another one?”
It’s ironic that when you were drunk it actually made some sense.
The girls would go straight to Mr. Boston’s whenever we went to visit my mother and father. Sarah would usually start out as the bartender because she was older and Jenna would be her soul customer (*ms, intentional).
We could hear them laughing and yelling as we all laughed and smiled upstairs.
Eventually, they would get a bit bored with the limited clientele and come back upstairs to recruit some fresh meat.
We would all go downstairs and ‘get served’ as the girls became both bartender and waitress.
They would take orders on their paper pads and serve us wonderful food and drink.
That was until we got our bill.
($768.00 for 2 burgers and drinks!?!?!?! Your prices are too high Mr. Boston)
I guess what I realized today was that my cellar was a place where small dreams came true for many people, including my two oldest daughters.
And I know that everyone reading this post has their own ‘Mr. Boston’s’ as well.
Write about it tonight . . .  and remember.
It’s only a few pen strokes away . . .